Dave Challinor fumes as Stockport waste chances and drop points

Stockport manager Dave Challinor was frustrated with his team’s poor second-half performance as they were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Reading.

After Brad Hills headed against the bar, Kyle Wootton gave the hosts a deserved 22nd-minute lead when he prodded home from Tyler Onyango’s header back across the goal.

But the hosts failed to build on their strong first-half showing and were pegged back after 73 minutes when Jack Marriott finished off a sweeping Reading move.

Challinor said: “I think we should have won the game but we, again, have not taken the chances we created and have missed out on getting three points.

“We have taken the lead in eight of our last 10 games and only won four of them.

“In the past, we haven’t been overly creative in terms of the chances we were making but we were really efficient at putting the ball in the net. But this season, even though we have scored in every game, we should have scored more.

“In the second half, we sank five yards deeper when we should have been higher up the pitch.

“The positive from the last three games is that we have created enough chances to win them all comfortably.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Reading because they have a team full of quality, and they keep going, but they should not have been in that game.

“We have to score our chances if we are going to achieve anything this season. We have to be better to allow ourselves to compete at the very top.”

Reading manager Noel Hunt lauded the character of his players as they fought back to earn a point on the road.

He said: “I thought we were a good value for the point, definitely after our second-half performance.

“At half-time, we were completely second best. Second best at duels, second quickest to the ball, and we were letting Kyle Wootton, who is a great player, dictate to us.

“I said, that can’t happen, we have to put our foot in, we have to get aggressive, we have to get physical, and in the second half we did this.

“After half-time, we won our battles. We went out there fighting, we out-fought Stockport, and then we could out-play them.

“It was a great ball from (Charlie) Savage to pick out Matt Ritchie on the wing for the goal and then Jack Marriott finishes it brilliantly. Jack has only been in the door a couple of weeks but we are really happy to have him.

“But I keep on saying, if we don’t win the fundamentals, you can’t get those moments of quality in the game.”